1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cassette loading assembly for loading a plurality of tape cassettes into a tape drive, and more particularly, to a device for positive restraint of a cassette within a magazine of the tape loading assembly, which device may be disengaged to allow loading of the cassette from the magazine to the tape drive.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional digital audio tape (DAT) cassettes for 51/4 inch form factor tape drives, such as an R-DAT tape cassette marketed by Conner Tape Division, Costa Mesa, Calif., can store up to approximately 5 to 10 gigabytes of data. However, many applications, including archival storage, journaling, on-line and background storage, and the unattended back-up of large amounts of data, may require storage of several times that amount of data. When backing up a data source of more than 10 gigabytes, it is necessary to frequently change the cassette tape in a cassette drive, generally about once every few hours. Since most such backing up is done outside of normal work hours to avoid tying up the computer holding the data, it is often not convenient to change the data tape. Thus, cassette loading systems have been developed which are capable of holding a plurality of data tape cassettes for loading automatically into a tape drive. The system includes a storage magazine comprising a plurality of cassette bays where the tapes are held for loading into the tape drive, and a loader which accomplishes the transfer of the cassette tapes from the cassette bays into the drive. An example of such a tape loading system has been developed by Predator Systems Corporation under the name Data Hawk I, which holds up to eight, 4 mm DAT cassettes for loading and unloading to a 4 mm DAT cassette drive.
A disadvantage to conventional cassette magazines is that the cassette tapes may be dislodged from the cassette bays if the magazine is mishandled. Moreover, when the magazine is in operation with a tape drive, a shock to the magazine or the drive may cause one or more of the cassette tapes to become partially or completely dislodged, thereby potentially causing errors or shut-down of an unattended system.